What's the Story?

On Ash Wednesday of 2004 I took the day off work, as I do every year at the start of Lent, only that year I hooked up with some friends from Rex and Tucker to see the opening-day screening of The Passion of the Christ.

Afterwards when my friends and I were leaving the theater we noticed a small crowd of people gathered around a news truck. The south-Atlanta bureau chief for a local T.V. station was interviewing people as they exited the theater, getting their take on the film.

Or rather, he had a story he was trying to make news with, and he wasn't going to let mere veracity get in his way.

I waited my turn in line, then took his question.

"Many ministers are saying that parents should take the entire family to see this movie, including small children. Do you think The Passion is suitable for small children?"

This baiting question needed the right kind of answer.

"You know," I said, "I've followed the news pretty closely on this one, and I haven't come across a single minister telling parents to take small children to see the movie. Who are some of these 'many' ministers you're referring to?"

"Well...some ministers," the reporter clarified

"Ah," I said. "I see."

The reporter and the cameraman also asked me if I knew the name of the device the Romans used in the movie to scourge Jesus.

"It's called a scourge," I explained.

Clearly, routine fact-checking was also not a top priority here.

Anyway, those particular tidbits didn't air; what did air was my critique that the film was a gripping and accurate portrayal of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ.

I didn't see the broadcast, but my friend Dave did -- he'd seen the movie with me and had also been interviewed.

"You and I look like two guys who need to get some more sun," Dave my fellow pale-white-guy told me. This was particularly funny because the news crew had gotten Dave's name wrong and credited him in the sub-text on the broadcast with being the pastor of one of Atlanta's black churches.

For the record, some film critics objected to the graphic violence in the film. Curiously, film critics, as a rule, had no qualms about the graphic violence in Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. Go figure.

Factoid: Luca Lionello, the Italian actor who played Judas in the movie, credits his experience making the film with his conversion from atheism to Catholicism.